Kang bed-stove

The kang (Chinese: 炕; pinyin: kàng; Manchu: nahan, Kazakh: кән) is a traditional heated platform, 2 metres or more long, used for general living, working, entertaining and sleeping in the northern part of China, where the winter climate is cold.

Its interior cavity, leading to an often-convoluted flue system, channels the hot exhaust from a firewood/coal fireplace, usually the cooking fire from an adjacent room that serves as a kitchen, sometimes from a stove set below floor level.

A separate stove may be used to control the amount of smoke circulating through the kang, maintaining comfort in warmer weather.

[1] A kang which covers the entire floor is called a dikang (Chinese: 地炕; pinyin: dì kàng; lit.

Heated walls huoqiang (Chinese: 火牆; pinyin: Huǒqiáng) with a double-flue system were found in a 4th-century palace building in Jilin Province.

Fires are set at outdoor openings at the four sides of the platform, while the heat flows inwards, warming the entire hall.

The construction was established by a benefactor (or benefactors) to enable the monks to study in cold winters.The kang may have evolved to its bed design due to ongoing cultural changes during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, as high furniture and chairs came to be prevalent over the earlier style of floor-sitting and low-lying furniture in Chinese culture.